With the NFL Draft pundits rolling out their final mock drafts this week, which one should you pay the most attention to?

We have graded the Round 1 mock drafts of Mel Kiper (ESPN), Todd McShay (ESPN), and Mike Mayock (NFL.com) for each of the past six years (2008-2013). Here are the results.

Let’s start with our simple variability measure, which is based on the difference between when each player was projected to be picked and when he was actually picked. A lower variability score is better:

Variability

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Average

Mayock

7.3

9.6

9.9

9.3

7.9

10.7

9.1

Kiper

10.1

8.8

10.4

7.7

8.5

11.7

9.6

McShay

10.7

8.7

8.8

6.8

7.0

21.5

10.6

Mike Mayock has posted the best average. Todd McShay had a great run from 2009-12 but stumbled badly last year (as did all of the pundits, but McShay did even worse).

Here are all the individual major Hits and Misses from the pundits for each of the years:

The variability metric can be significantly impacted by “outliers” such as McShay picking Ryan Nassib to go #7 last year (he went #110), so we have calculated a few alternative metrics, including Median Error and Hit Rate.

Median Error (lower = better)

Median Error

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Average

Mayock

2.0

4.0

3.0

3.0

3.5

3.5

3.2

Kiper

3.0

3.5

3.0

4.0

3.0

3.5

3.4

McShay

4.0

4.0

3.0

3.5

3.0

5.0

3.8

Hit Rate (higher = better): pure percentage of how many picks were correct

Hit Rate

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Average

Mayock

35%

28%

22%

28%

19%

28%

27%

Kiper

29%

25%

31%

28%

22%

25%

27%

McShay

16%

25%

34%

25%

16%

22%

23%

We will be back next week with our grades for this year’s mock drafts.

For those new to PunditTracker, we aim to level the prediction playing field by allowing users to compete with the ‘experts’. Head over to our NFL Draft section to make some of your own predictions for the 2014 Draft using the ‘Vote Now’ buttons.

Most of the NBA playoff first-round series are shaping up to be hotly contested matchups, so let’s check in to see if the ‘experts’ had them pegged right.

The early answer is no, at least on the competitiveness front. We are tracking 29 pundits from ESPN.com, Yahoo, and CBS, and it turns out that the expert class bet big on the Round 1 favorites. Here is a breakdown of all the match-ups, with both the Vegas odds for each series as well as the percentage of pundits that picked each team and the average number of games they forecast.

Vegas

Pundits

Games

Clippers

77%

100%

6

Warriors

23%

0%

Pacers

82%

100%

5

Hawks

18%

0%

Heat

92%

100%

5

Bobcats

8%

0%

Nets

54%

66%

6

Raptors

46%

34%

Bulls

63%

96%

6

Wizards

37%

4%

Spurs

84%

100%

5

Mavericks

16%

0%

Thunder

76%

93%

6

Grizzlies

24%

7%

Rockets

65%

78%

6

Blazers

35%

22%

The biggest surprise so far is that all but one of the pundits (ESPN’s Michael Wallace) picked the Bulls to beat the Wizards, despite it being a 4/5 matchup and Vegas giving the Wizards a 37% chance. The experts predicted the Spurs/Mavericks to be a rout, with only Michael Wallace predicting that the series would last more than 5 games (Wallace: Spurs in 6). Similarly, all but two of the pundits (Kevin Arnovitz and David Thorpe) picked the Thunder over the Grizzlies (Vegas: Grizz 24% odds), while the entire group picked the Clips over the Warriors (Vegas: Warriors 23% odds). Finally, the pundits virtually all picked the Pacers in 5 or 6 games.

We will see how all the series shake out in the coming week, but whether the underdogs win or not, the pundits clearly whiffed on how competitive the first round would be.

For a recap of all the preseason predictions of the NBA pundits, see our previous post. If you’d like to place your own predictions on the next head coaches of the Knicks, Thunder, and Pacers, see our NBA page.

In what is becoming an annual tradition, we ask the question: will this year finally be the one where the baseball pundits turn it around? After a string of terrible prediction seasons from 2009-2012 (see details), the ‘experts’ followed it up with a truly pitiful 2013, in which no one picked either the Red Sox or the Cardinals to make the World Series (or even the Red Sox to win the AL East — details). A whopping 25 of the 29 pundits on our website — all of whom made at least three years worth of picks — have a letter grade of F.

So while an understandable question would be ‘why bother?, let’s give the pundits another shot and see what they are predicting this year. We will be tracking 64 so-called experts from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBS, Yahoo, and Fox. Here are their aggregate picks across nine categories: six Division Winners, two Pennants, and World Series. As always, we give you the chance to make your own predictions to see if you can do better (or at least less worse) than the paid experts.

AL(E)

AL(C)

AL(W)

NL(E)

NL(C)

NL(W)

AL

NL

W.S.

TB: 39

DET: 50

OAK: 28

WAS: 60

STL: 60

LAD: 56

TB: 25

WAS: 25

LAD: 17

BOS: 19

KC: 11

TEX: 24

ATL: 4

PIT: 3

SF: 5

DET: 22

LAD: 23

WAS: 17

BAL: 3

CLE: 3

LAA: 12

MIA: 0

CIN: 1

ARI: 2

BOS: 5

STL: 16

STL: 12

NYY: 3

CHW: 0

HOU: 0

NYY: 0

CHC: 0

SD: 1

OAK: 4

TB: 9

TOR: 0

MIN: 0

SEA: 0

PHI: 0

MIL: 0

COL: 0

KC: 2

DET: 6

NYY: 2

BOS: 2

TEX: 2

CLE: 1

BAL: 1

CLE: 1

As with last year, the Rays and Tigers are the two favorites in the American League, while the Nationals are the slight favorite in the National League. Interestingly, the pundits are predominantly picking the National League winner to take the Fall Classic, with 46 of the 64 picking either the Dodgers, Nationals, or Cardinals. The Tigers and Dodgers are consensus favorites in their divisions, while there is more debate on the other divisions, most notably the AL West. The most notable descrepancies with Vegas odds are the pundits’ optimism on the Nationals (Vegas gives the Braves a good shot in the NL East) and the pessimism, once again, on the Red Sox relative to the Rays.

Now, here is a gigantic table with all the individual World Series picks for this season, along with each pundit’s track record from 2009-2013 (sorted from best to worst, cumulative). The dollar amounts are what we call the ‘$1 Yield’, which is the average payout had you placed on $1 bets on each of the pundit’s nine picks each season, based on Vegas odds at the time. A yield of $1.05, for instance, means the pundit’s average return on investment was +5%. As you can see, only three of the 49 pundits with a track record have a yield higher than $1.00.

As we count down to the Final Four this week, let’s see which pundit’s bracket is in the best shape. As a reminder, we are tracking 26 ‘experts’ this year (from ESPN, Yahoo, SI, CBS Sports) as well as the President. To revisit our rankings after the first weekend, see our prior post.

First, let’s look at how many pundits collectively pegged each of the Elite Eight and Final Four teams.

Elite 8

# of Pundits

Final Four

# of Pundits

Florida

27

Florida

19

Michigan St.

24

Wisconsin

3

Arizona

23

UConn

0

Wisconsin

12

Kentucky

0

Michigan

10

Dayton

0

UConn

0

Kentucky

0

Not one of the experts we tracked picked Kentucky or UConn to make the Elite Eight, let alone the Final Four. Only three had Wisconsin in the Final Four: Jay Bilas, Seth Davis, and Mateen Cleaves.

Now, here are the updated pundit rankings based on a few metrics.

Hit Rate: % of picks that were correct (out of 60 games so far)

Yield: average payout had you placed $1 Futures bets on each bracket slot at ‘moneyline’ odds (giving more credit for underdog picks)

Points: traditional bracket scoring system (1 point for first round winners, 2 points for second round, 4 for Sweet 16, etc)

Pundit

Hit Rate

Yield

Points

Best Possible

Final 2

Winner

Seth Davis, SI

69%

$1.08

77

125

Florida v. Wich St

Florida

Pat Forde, Yahoo

75%

$1.22

75

75

Mich St v. Arizona

Mich St

Brad Evans, Yahoo

77%

$1.17

74

122

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Luke Winn, SI

83%

$1.39

72

120

Florida v. Wich St

Florida

Dick Vitale, ESPN

69%

$0.98

72

72

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Mateen Cleaves, ESPN

67%

$0.96

69

69

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Brian Hamilton, SI

71%

$1.06

69

85

Arizona v. Florida

Arizona

Andy Katz, ESPN

75%

$1.06

68

116

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Barack Obama

73%

$1.00

68

68

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Joe Lunardi, ESPN

73%

$1.08

68

116

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Chalk

71%

$0.97

68

116

Florida v. Arizona

Florida

Jerry Palm, CBS

75%

$1.14

67

67

Mich St v. Arizona

Mich St

Jeff Borzello, CBS

75%

$1.06

67

115

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Steve Lappas, CBS

73%

$1.16

67

67

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Jeff Goodman, ESPN

75%

$1.12

67

115

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Pete Gillen, CBS

71%

$1.00

66

114

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Doug Gottlieb, ESPN

73%

$0.99

65

65

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Dennis Dodd, CBS

69%

$1.16

64

64

Louisville v. Mich St

Louisville

Jay Bilas, ESPN

71%

$1.00

64

64

Mich St v. Louisville

Mich St

Colin Cowherd, ESPN

65%

$0.95

64

80

Louisville v. Florida

Louisville

Seth Greenberg, ESPN

69%

$0.98

63

63

Mich St v. Duke

Mich St

Jon Rothstein, CBS

79%

$1.12

62

62

Louisville v. Kansas

Louisville

Fran Franschilla, ESPN

60%

$0.86

60

108

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Gary Parrish, SI

60%

$0.92

55

55

Wich St v. Kansas

Wich St

Pete Thamel, SI

65%

$0.94

55

103

Florida v. Louisville

Florida

Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo

69%

$0.84

54

54

Arizona v. Kansas

Arizona

Gregg Doyel, CBS

60%

$0.77

49

49

Kansas v. Arizona

Kansas

Matt Norlander, CBS

58%

$0.77

48

48

Kansas v. Creighton

Kansas

Overall, brackets have been busted across the board, with the pundits hitting on only 20% of the Final Four teams on average (for a woeful $0.48 Yield). Seth Davis has a narrow lead using the traditional bracket scoring system, with the highest ‘best possible’ score as well, followed by Brad Evans and Luke Winn. Only 9 of the 26 experts outperformed ‘chalk’ (picking the higher seed in every matchup) on this metric, with only five having a higher ‘best possible’ result. Luke Winn maintains his lead based on both aggregate hit rate (83%) and Yield ($1.39), thanks largely to some strong picks in the early rounds.

We will update our rankings next week. In the meantime, head over to PunditTracker to make your picks on the Final Four games. We will grade you alongside the ‘experts’ once the outcomes are in.

With the exciting first two rounds of March Madness 2014 in the books, let’s see how the pundits are faring with their brackets so far. We are scoring 28 experts from ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, and CBS Sports this year, throwing in President Obama for good fun.

Our scoring system assumes you placed $1 Futures bets on each bracket slot at Vegas Moneyline odds based on the pundit’s picks. Here are the rankings for the first two rounds: the Hit Rate represents the % of picks that were correct, while the Yield is the average payout of those picks.

Pundit

Rd of 32
Hit Rate

Rd of 32
Yield

Sweet 16
Hit Rate

Sweet 16
Yield

Cumulative
Hit Rate

Cumulative
Yield

Average

74%

$1.06

64%

$1.17

71%

$1.09

Luke Winn, SI

88%

$1.43

75%

$1.86

83%

$1.57

Dennis Dodd, CBS

69%

$1.11

69%

$1.64

69%

$1.28

Jon Rothstein, CBS

81%

$1.13

75%

$1.57

79%

$1.27

Pat Forde, Yahoo

78%

$1.22

69%

$1.35

75%

$1.26

Brad Evans, Yahoo

75%

$1.00

81%

$1.74

77%

$1.24

Jeff Goodman, ESPN

78%

$1.12

69%

$1.43

75%

$1.22

Steve Lappas, CBS

72%

$1.09

75%

$1.48

73%

$1.22

Jerry Palm, CBS

78%

$1.23

69%

$1.16

75%

$1.21

Jeff Borzello, CBS

78%

$1.11

69%

$1.29

75%

$1.17

Andy Katz, ESPN

75%

$1.00

75%

$1.48

75%

$1.16

Joe Lunardi, ESPN

81%

$1.27

56%

$0.85

73%

$1.13

Brian Hamilton, SI

72%

$0.98

69%

$1.38

71%

$1.11

Doug Gottlieb, CBS

78%

$1.09

63%

$1.03

73%

$1.07

Pete Gillen, CBS

69%

$0.89

75%

$1.43

71%

$1.07

Seth Greenberg, ESPN

72%

$1.06

63%

$1.07

69%

$1.07

Pete Thamel, SI

72%

$1.09

50%

$1.03

65%

$1.07

Barack Obama

81%

$1.13

56%

$0.84

73%

$1.03

Gary Parrish, CBS

72%

$0.94

63%

$1.19

69%

$1.02

Jay Bilas, ESPN

75%

$1.03

63%

$0.98

71%

$1.01

"Chalk"

75%

$1.01

63%

$0.98

71%

$1.00

Seth Davis, SI

78%

$1.11

50%

$0.75

69%

$0.99

Colin Cowherd, ESPN

69%

$1.02

56%

$0.88

65%

$0.98

Dick Vitale, ESPN

69%

$0.86

69%

$1.16

69%

$0.96

Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo

75%

$0.97

56%

$0.85

69%

$0.93

Mateen Cleaves, CBS

72%

$0.94

56%

$0.90

67%

$0.92

Fran Franschilla, ESPN

69%

$0.91

44%

$0.76

60%

$0.86

Gregg Doyel, CBS

66%

$0.89

50%

$0.75

60%

$0.84

Matt Norlander, CBS

63%

$0.87

50%

$0.78

58%

$0.84

Overall, the pundits have done quite well so far, with the majority returning a positive yield as well as outperforming “Chalk” (always picking the higher seeds). Luke Winn of SI leads the pack, followed by Dennis Dodd of CBS; they were the only two experts to have Dayton in the Sweet 16. Luke Winn had the best first round hit rate (28/32), while Brad Evans was 13/16 with his Sweet 16 picks, including Tennessee.

Here is how the pundits did collectively with their Sweet Sixteen predictions. No one had Stanford, while only Pete Gillen, Brad Evans, and Jeff Goodman had Tennessee.

Sweet 16 Team

# of Pundits Correct (out of 28)

1. Florida

27

4. Louisville

27

1. Virginia

26

4. Michigan St.

26

1. Arizona

26

2. Michigan

25

3. Iowa St.

24

2. Wisconsin

23

4. UCLA

21

4. San Diego St.

19

7. Connecticut

11

6. Baylor

8

8. Kentucky

7

11. Tennessee

3

11. Dayton

2

10. Stanford

0

We will update the rankings as we proceed throughout the tournament.

Bracket already busted? PunditTracker allows you to compete with the experts by picking all of the Sweet 16 games. Head over to our March Madness section to make your picks using the ‘Vote Now’ buttons and see if you can crack our User Leaderboard.

With the March Madness brackets fresh off the presses, which of the so-called experts has a bracket worth using for your office pool?

Here were our final bracket rankings from last year. We scored 32 pundits from ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, and CBS Sports.

The following table ranks the pundits based on their average “Yield” of their 63 total picks. The Yield measures the average payout, using Vegas futures odds, had you placed $1 bets on each of the pundit’s selections. This approach fits well with March Madness, since it mimics bracket scoring systems that award extra points for predicting upsets. Hit Rate is simply the % of predictions that were correct. Given the large number of upsets last year, the rankings by Hit Rate and Yield turned out very different (each column is sortable):

Pundit

Hit Rate

Yield

Gregg Doyel, CBS

56%

$1.26

Jerry Palm, CBS

60%

$1.12

Seth Greenberg, ESPN

63%

$1.09

Dick Vitale, ESPN

60%

$1.07

Jeff Goodman, CBS

62%

$1.06

Andy Glockner, SI

63%

$1.06

John Gasaway, ESPN

65%

$1.04

Joe Lunardi, ESPN

60%

$1.04

Brad Evans, Yahoo

60%

$1.03

Pete Gillen, SI

60%

$1.03

Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo

62%

$1.02

Peter Tiernan, CBS

63%

$1.01

Alaa Abdelnaby, CBS

59%

$1.00

Wally Szczerbiak, CBS

62%

$1.00

"Chalk" (higher seed)

62%

$1.00

Mateen Cleaves, CBS

60%

$0.99

Pete Thamel, CBS

60%

$0.98

Gary Parrish, CBS

60%

$0.97

Matt Norlander, CBS

54%

$0.97

Jay Bilas, ESPN

60%

$0.97

Barack Obama

60%

$0.97

Dennis Dodd, CBS

48%

$0.96

Vegas Favorites

60%

$0.95

Greg Anthony, Yahoo

56%

$0.92

Luke Winn, SI

56%

$0.91

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo

60%

$0.91

Stewart Mandel, SI

56%

$0.90

Seth Davis, SI

52%

$0.87

Pat Forde, Yahoo

54%

$0.86

Jeff Borzello, CBS

52%

$0.86

Kelli Anderson, SI

54%

$0.85

Andy Katz, ESPN

51%

$0.77

Michael Wilbon, ESPN

44%

$0.75

Doug Gottlieb, CBS

51%

$0.74

Colin Cowherd, ESPN

49%

$0.68

Gregg Doyel of CBS had the highest yielding bracket, despite not picking Louisville to win it all, mostly because he was the only one of the 32 pundits to have Michigan in the Finals (a strong out-of-consensus pick). When ranked by Hit Rate, John Gasaway of ESPN turned in the best performance, hitting on 41 of his 63 picks.

The worst brackets belonged to Colin Cowherd, Michael Wilbon, Andy Katz, and Doug Gottlieb. Cowherd and Wilbon both got less than half their picks right, while all four of these pundits would have lost you more than 20% of your money had you bet on their picks.

Finally, here are the cumulative rankings for the pundits for whom we tracked brackets in both 2012 and 2013.

Pundit

Hit Rate
(2012 & 13)

Yield
(2012 & 13)

Jeff Goodman, CBS

65%

$1.13

Peter Tiernan, CBS

66%

$1.12

Jay Bilas, ESPN

67%

$1.10

Barack Obama

66%

$1.10

Gregg Doyel, CBS

55%

$1.09

Jerry Palm, CBS

61%

$1.08

Joe Lunardi, ESPN

60%

$1.00

Matt Norlander, CBS

56%

$0.99

Dick Vitale, ESPN

59%

$0.97

Jeff Borzello, CBS

57%

$0.97

Andy Glockner, SI

60%

$0.96

Gary Parrish, CBS

60%

$0.95

Luke Winn, SI

58%

$0.95

Brad Evans, Yahoo

57%

$0.95

Dennis Dodd, CBS

51%

$0.92

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo

61%

$0.91

Stewart Mandel, SI

56%

$0.88

Pat Forde, Yahoo

54%

$0.88

Seth Davis, SI

53%

$0.86

Colin Cowherd, ESPN

57%

$0.85

Andy Katz, ESPN

54%

$0.82

We’ll be back next week to recap bracket rankings for the opening weekend.

For those new to our site, PunditTracker levels the playing field by allowing users to compete with the ‘experts’. Head over to our March Madness section now and use the ‘Vote Now’ button to make your own Final Four picks.

We tracked 18 pundits who made predictions for all 24 categories of the 86th Annual Academy Awards. Here are the results:

[The second column is the # of predictions that turned out correct. The third column is the Yield, which measures the average payout, based on Vegas odds, had you bet $1 on each of the predictions. This gives pundits more credit for out-of-consensus calls, and a Yield above $1.00 means the pundit did better than the consensus view]

Pundit

Hit Rate

$1 Yield

Average

20/24

$1.08

Tom Shone, The Guardian

22/24

$1.28

Kyle Buchanan, Vulture

21/24

$1.23

Gregory Ellwood, HitFix

21/24

$1.23

Glenn Whipp, LA Times

21/24

$1.21

Thelma Adams, Yahoo

22/24

$1.16

Kristopher Tapley, HitFix

20/24

$1.16

Anne Thompson, Indiewire

21/24

$1.11

Scott Feinberg, Hollywood Reporter

19/24

$1.09

Clayton Davis, The Awards Circuit

19/24

$1.09

Steve Pond, TheWrap

19/24

$1.08

Vegas Favorites

21/24

$1.06

Mark Harris, Grantland

20/24

$1.03

Anthony Breznican, Entertainment Weekly

19/24

$0.99

Joel D Amos, Movie Fanatic

19/24

$0.99

Kevin Polowy, Yahoo

20/24

$0.99

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

20/24

$0.99

Pete Hammond, Deadline

17/24

$0.99

Peter Knegt, Indiewire

19/24

$0.96

Guy Lodge, HitFix

17/24

$0.82

The Best Oscar Pundit for 2014 was Tom Shone of The Guardian, who got 22 of 24 picks correct for a Yield of $1.28, helped by non-consensus picks such as ‘Helium’ for Live Action Short and ’20 Feet from Stardom’ for Documentary. Overall, the pundits did quite well this year, generating an average Yield of $1.08. It was a strong year for the favorites, with Vegas going 21/24 for a $1.06 Yield.

Here is how the pundits did by category. Not one picked Mr. Hublot for Animated Short (Get a Horse! was the consensus favorite).

Category

Hit Rate

Best Picture

11/18

Best Actor

18/18

Best Actress

18/18

Best Supporting Actor

18/18

Best Supporting Actress

15/18

Best Director

18/18

Best Adapted Screenplay

18/18

Best Original Screenplay

10/18

Best Animated Feature

18/18

Best Foreign Language Film

15/18

Best Documentary Feature

14/18

Best Cinematography

18/18

Best Film Editing

7/18

Best Production Design

13/18

Best Costume Design

12/18

Best Original Song

18/18

Best Original Score

17/18

Best Sound Editing

18/18

Best Sound Mixing

18/18

Best Visual Effects

18/18

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

17/18

Best Live Action Short

9/18

Best Animated Short

0/18

Best Documentary Short

18/18

Finally, here is our scorecard of the pundits who have full predictions for at least two of the past three Oscars:

Pundit

2012

2013

2014

Average

Melena Ryzik, New York Times

$1.36

$1.31

$1.34

Anthony Breznican, Entertainment Weekly

$1.61

$0.99

$1.30

Anne Thompson, Indiewire

$1.07

$1.45

$1.11

$1.21

Kris Tapley, HitFix

$1.39

$1.08

$1.16

$1.21

Clayton Davis, The Awards Circuit

$1.35

$1.12

$1.09

$1.19

Scott Feinberg, Hollywood Reporter

$0.96

$1.48

$1.09

$1.18

Tom Shone, The Guardian

$1.05

$1.28

$1.17

Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times

$1.16

$0.96

$1.21

$1.11

Peter Knegt, Indiewire

$1.37

$0.94

$0.96

$1.09

Vegas Favorites

$1.10

$1.03

$1.06

$1.06

Pete Hammond, Deadline.com

$1.22

$0.86

$0.99

$1.02

Kyle Buchanan, Vulture

$1.01

$0.82

$1.23

$1.02

Steve Pond, TheWrap

$1.14

$0.83

$1.08

$1.02

Joel D Amos, Movie Fanatic

$1.02

$0.99

$1.01

Kevin Polowy, Yahoo

$0.95

$0.84

$0.99

$0.93

Guy Lodge, HitFix

$1.01

$0.93

$0.82

$0.92

Rotten Tomatoes

$0.83

$1.01

$0.92

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

$0.73

$0.89

$0.99

$0.87

Perhaps it’s too early to make predictions for the 2015 Oscars , but why not give it a shot? For those new to our site, PunditTracker levels the playing field by allowing users to compete with the ‘experts’. Head over to our Entertainment section and use the ‘Vote Now’ button to make your picks on next year’s Oscars as well as box office predictions for ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’, ‘Divergent’, and ‘Avengers 2′. You can also see a full breakdown of all the pundits’ picks here.

If we missed any Oscar pundits that you think we should have tracked, please let us know and we will add them to the list.

Here is how the 24 NFL game pickers we are tracking fared with their weekly picks this year, sorted best-to-worst by season Yield, along with their Super Bowl picks. As a reminder, Yield is the average payout had you bet $1 on each of the pundit’s picks at Moneyline odds. As a group, the ‘experts’ added no value this year, with a collective yield of $1.00.

Pundit

Record

Hit Rate

$1 Yield

Super Bowl Pick

Ron Jaworski, ESPN

181-84

68%

$1.08

Broncos

Prediction Machine, CBS

182-83

69%

$1.05

Seahawks

Mike Ditka, ESPN

169-96

64%

$1.05

Broncos

Vegas Favorites

185-80

70%

$1.05

Broncos

Dave Richard, CBS

177-88

67%

$1.05

Seahawks

Seth Wickersham, ESPN

171-94

65%

$1.04

Seahawks

Ryan Wilson, CBS

173-92

65%

$1.04

Seahawks

Jamey Eisenberg, CBS

176-89

66%

$1.03

Broncos

K.C. Joyner, ESPN

175-90

66%

$1.03

Broncos

Keyshawn Johnson, ESPN

166-99

63%

$1.02

Seahawks

Tom Jackson, ESPN

170-95

64%

$1.01

Broncos

Chris Mortensen, ESPN

171-94

65%

$1.01

Broncos

John Breech, CBS

172-93

65%

$1.00

Seahawks

Mark Schlereth, ESPN

170-95

64%

$1.00

Broncos

Will Brinson, CBS

165-100

62%

$1.00

Broncos

Merril Hoge, ESPN

165-100

62%

$0.99

Broncos

Adam Schefter, ESPN

170-95

64%

$0.98

Broncos

Cris Carter, ESPN

170-95

64%

$0.97

Seahawks

Pete Prisco, CBS

167-98

63%

$0.97

Broncos

Josh Katzowitz, CBS

164-101

62%

$0.96

Broncos

Eric Allen, ESPN

165-100

62%

$0.96

Broncos

Mike Golic, ESPN

164-101

62%

$0.96

Seahawks

Frank Schwab, Yahoo

161-98

62%

$0.95

Jason La Canfora, CBS

154-111

58%

$0.93

Seahawks

Average

64%

$1.00

We will update the full weekly rankings (2011-13) after the Super Bowl. For those new to our site, PunditTracker levels the playing field by allowing users to compete with the ‘experts’. If you’d like to make your own Super Bowl pick — as well as several prop bets — head over to our Sports section and use the ‘Vote Now’ button to make your picks. As with the NFL ‘experts’, we will hold you accountable after the game!

The headlines for Apple’s earnings are focusing on the 51 million iPhones shipped, which fell shy of Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 55 million. For us at PunditTracker, the more interesting question is why — yet again — were the analyst’s estimates were so tightly clustered? As Fortune’s terrific spreadsheet shows, 19 of the 30 analysts predicted between 54 and 56 million iPhones. This range seems shockingly narrow for a consumer technology product, particularly given all the ‘proprietary channel checks’ being done. 29 of the 30 pundits were in a range between 52.0 and 58.5 million, which of course failed to capture the actual result. Only Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest came in below 52 million (his prediction was 50.93).

We discussed potential reasons for this errant clustering in a post last year.